Croft Ambrey is an Iron Age hill fort in Herefordshire, England.
Location
Croft Ambrey, on Yatton Hill, is in the
civil parish of
Aymestrey, north from
Leominster, south-east from the South
Shropshire border, and approximately east from the
Wales border. The fort is on high ground beyond and adjoining the north-east boundary of National Trust
Croft Castle parkland. The nearest settlements are the villages of
Yarpole, Aymestrey and Yatton, and the hamlet of Mortimer's Cross.
[ "Croft Ambrey", UK Grid Reference Finder. Retrieved 3 March 2020] The
Mortimer Trail waymarked long-distance footpath passes the site.
Description
The monument includes a small
multivallate hillfort with an annexe containing a Romano-Celtic temple and a medieval
Burrow of up to five
pillow mounds on the summit of a prominent steeply sloping spur overlooking Yatton Marsh and the valley of a tributary to Allcock's Brook. The hillfort survives as a roughly triangular enclosure defined to the north by two scarps with a buried ditch: to the west by three rampart banks and a larger internal ditch and to the south by three rampart banks with two medial ditches and a wide internal ditch which may have been used to store water. There were two complex entrances which through time had 20 successive gateposts and were further enhanced with guardrooms, corridors and bridges of which the south western was the principal entrance and the north eastern was complex and inturned. The enclosure originally covered approximately 2.2ha, but this increased through time to 3.6ha and eventually a southern rectangular annexe was added. This is defined by two slighter concentric banks.
Excavations
The hillfort was excavated between 1960 and 1966 and was found to have been in use from the 6th century BC up to AD 48. It contained closely set rectangular buildings which had been rebuilt up to six times. The population of the hillfort was estimated at 500-900 individuals. Finds included metalwork such as iron tools, weapons, sickles, blades, nails and a spade, shale and glass objects, bone and antler artefacts, spindle whorls, loom and thatch weights, saddle querns and rotary querns, hammer stones and
Iron Age pottery.
There are some notable parallels with the hillfort at Wapley Hill, which also was used for rabbit farming.
Further reading
-
Children, G; Nash, G (1994) Prehistoric Sites of Herefordshire Logaston Press
External links
